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Amanda - posted on 10/18/2009

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Honestly my son is 7 months and he is 20lbs already and yes the carrier sounds like a nice idea but the weight of that plus the child is just to much. since you walk everywhere and live in the city i would suggest getting the convertable car seat to save money so you dont have to buy a new one in a little bit and just get a stroller and if you want you can get the slings and carriers for dad and mom it will make it alot easyer to function in the busyness of the city and also keep the baby close with it is really tiny and you can turn them around when they are older to see the world. Hope this help!!

Seeing that you walk alot why not go for the carrier with a stroller. Yes its a bit of pain in restaurants but most places will accomodate you by putting you in a corner or moving a table over to make rooom for baby. I had a small baby, so the carrier was perfect and even at almost 4 mo old he still doens't fit big enough to be in the stroller without the carrier. We know that in about 8 mon we will we have to buy a new carseat for him, but I am still loving the fact that 2 wks old I was able to take him for a walk and he just slept in the carrier while I loaded his stroller full of groceries.

The other thing to consider is what is your hospital rules for discharging an infant? Our hospital would not let you take a baby home without it being a carrier. That way they can inspect your model, make sure you have the instructions and help you make any adjustments needed to make your baby safer. Most models out there come with a base, carrier and stroller, just do yourself a favor and find a carrier with a strap adjustment on the front rather than having to look at the back to adjust them.

if you have a good stroller that fully reclines or you use a carry-on while running errands, then transitional car seat is the way to go. except if you're going to pick up your baby from the hospital in a car, borrow one or rent one. HOSPITALS WILL NOT RELEASE A BABY INTO A VEHICLE IF THE INFANT CAR SEAT IS NOT INSTALLED. and transitional seats do not meet their criteria.

if your stroller comes with an infant car seat, then great! just use that one and buy a transitional one for the car for later on. regardless of what these product reviews are telling you, the safest child car seat is the one that fits properly into your car and the one that your baby is comfortable sitting in! it can have the highest safety rating, but if you cannot install it in your vehicle so that it doesn't wiggle, it's not safe and you are better off getting a less popular one but the one that fits correctly. same is true with comfort -- if your infant is not comfortable in that seat, no matter how safe it is, it's not safe for either one of you because him screaming at the top of his lungs the entire time he's in the car makes u stressed out & less vigilant on the road.

again, to get back to your question: infant carriers are great just like baby bjorns and have their advantages (unless you have a huge baby that outgrows both of them by the age of 4 months like my son was -- he still rode in his peg perego car seat (went up to 30" or 30lbs until he was 6 months, but i couldn't carry him around in it because he weighed over 35 lbs with that damn thing and it was surely out of the question to carry him & the stroller on a bus).

my rule of thumb is if you and your husband are big (i.e. tall with broad shoulders) and your baby is most likely to be big (i.e. 9 lbs and over), then skip the infant seat if your stroller doesn't come with it -- the 2-3 months that you'll get to enjoy it as a carrier isn't worth the $150-300 for the seat, go get urself a nice dress that fits your new curves & a manicure with that money, will do much more good to your self-esteem & overall post-pregnancy life. good luck!

If you have the $ for it i would purchase on of each and start with the carrying one . I have both and i started with the carrier and recently went to the 5-100lbs car seat but i still have my carrier one strapped in so i can use it to carry him around in restaurants if he is sleeping or in the grocery store where i can't hold him while he sleeps and still do stuff easily. the stroller is sometimes not convenient at the restaurants. Just a thought.

Starting out I think it is easier to have the carrier because they can't hold their heads up and its real convienent taking out the carrier especially when they are sleeping... When the child is a couple months old its easier to just carry them & use a stroller because they become soo heavy in the carrier. But if you decide to get the convertable one I'd make sure you keep a snuggie or whatever those things are called that keeps the baby strapped to you. That would be the only way I could figure you'd get around shopping and what not! I personally don't feel comfortable w/one of those until the baby holds up his/her head but IDK? Maybe its just me being paranoid :)

My daughter HATED the infant carrier carseat! Screamed everytime I put her in it! I ended up buying the Britax roundabout and it was an instant difference! When I went to the store, I just placed her in an infant carrier on the front of me!

If you do a lot of walking I would recommend the carrier since many now a days come with a stroller, I had a few that all you had to do was click them into place, it was easy and convenient to use and even though the stroller was a bit big it folded up easy when you needed to put it away.

it costs more this way but you get the added bonus of being able to use the stroller for a while even after the car seat isnt needed.

I got the carrier first and it was REALLY nice bc if my son was asleep we could just pop him out and carry him into wherever we're going. I would say if you go with one of these though to be sure you get the one that goes up to 30lbs not 22lbs. My son was out of the 22lb one by the time he was eight months old. It's really nice to have the stroller as well! Plus my MIL was watching my son and it was so nice to be able just to buy her a base that she could just lock him into when she needed to go somewhere versus lugging the car seat between me, my husband, and my MIL. We actually had to get three car seats now that we're there because it became such a pain.

I had the same thoughts but i ended up buying the carrier one because I though how the heck is my son going to sit in a grocery cart without one....and what will i do in a restaurant, he cant sit in a high chair. It ended up being a good buy. I found a stroller with a car seat for 100 dollars at walmart.com. I love it and the stroller will last all through toddlerhood. The car seat wont last forever but i got my monies worth out of it with all the times I went somewhere. Plus....when that infant is sleeping in the car and you get home and you REALLY dont wanna wake them up taking them out of it, carry the car seat inside with sleeping baby and let them wake up when they want to. This gives bonus time to bring the goceries in and put everything away. Have fun doing that with a toddle seat. Good luck

I had an infant/toddle seat with my first son and now we have a carrier. I don't really prefer one over the other. The only added bonus about starting with an infant/toddle seat is that you don't have to put the money out for 2 seats.

it depends on the childs age. if you get an infant seat with a carrier then you want have to take the child out of the infant seat when you take out of the car, you can just unbuckle it and use as a carrier also or if you go with the convertible toddler seat you will have to take the child out and carry around or put the child in a stroller vs a baby carrier. it depends on which one you prefer.

its a better bargain to buy the convertible...I bout one that goes from infant to 100lbs...it is wonderful and I paid around 200 dollars for it...if you buy them all separately you will pay much more than this...